


Flour and Wine

by sabaceanbabe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 06:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/pseuds/sabaceanbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Peeta's voice sounded funny, mushy and indistinct. Not like his voice at all. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flour and Wine

Katniss was tired. She had spent a long afternoon in the woods and was almost to her back door with the day’s haul when she heard a loud cry of pain from Peeta’s open kitchen window, followed by a crash and something shattering.

“Peeta!” she shouted, dropping the brace of dead rabbits to the grass as she sprinted for Peeta’s house. The back door was closest, not only to her but to the sounds. “Peeta!” She grasped the door knob, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked. She pounded on the door, listening intently for any sounds within.

“Katniss, I’m okay. I ju—” Another sharp cry cut off anything else and she heard something else crash to the floor. His voice sounded funny, mushy and indistinct. Not like his voice at all. She rattled the door and when it turned out to still be locked, she pulled her hunting knife from its sheath and used the pommel to break the glass in the door, then knocked enough jagged pieces out of the frame to not shred her arm when she reached through to unlock the door.

Peeta sat in the middle of his kitchen floor, curled over his hands, his shoulders shaking. His kitchen looked like a war zone, at least near the oven, which stood open, heat pouring out of it, the elements within glowing orange as they kept it hot. Smashed crockery littered the floor between the oven and Peeta, and a chair lay on its side nearby. A dozen rolls were scattered amidst a splattering of red wine from a fallen bottle, dead soldiers fallen across Katniss’ path.

Picking her way through the carnage, Katniss closed the oven door and turned it off before dropping to her knees in front of Peeta. Still hunched over his arms and making odd little sounds, he didn’t look up. Hesitantly reaching out with one hand, Katniss repeated his name and when he still didn’t respond, she gently laid her hand on one shaking shoulder.

He jumped explosively at her touch and she jerked her hand back as if burned, falling backward onto her butt, half expecting a full-on attack. For the briefest moment, she felt again his strong hands around her throat. It was only when he cradled both of those hands near his chest amidst a chorus of “ow ow ow” that she realized the shaking and the odd little sounds were equal parts pain and laughter.

“Peeta? What happened?” She wasn’t ready to relax yet, but she no longer feared he might hurt her. It had been months since he’d had a serious flashback. She leaned toward him again, cautiously touched the knuckles of his right hand. “Let me see your hands.” She still felt the heat of the oven at her back.

Allowing her to take his hands in hers, almost without flinching, Peeta told her, “They’re burned.” The heels of both hands, the pads of his fingers were red and starting to blister and she tried to think what her mother would do if she were there. Maneuvering to her feet, she drew Peeta with her when she went to the sink and turned on the cold water tap.

“You’re supposed to use gloves or something when you take things out of the oven,” she scolded, holding his hands under the water. The heat of his body beside hers was a stark contrast to the cold liquid, soft on their joined hands. He laughed again and it no longer sounded quite so hysterical.

“I forgot.” She glanced at him sharply from the corner of her eye.

“You forgot.” He shrugged and looked away, stared instead at the silvery water flowing from the tap.

“Keep your hands under the water,” she ordered and stepped away from him, started picking up the debris on the floor. When she lifted the empty bottle of wine and looked back over at Peeta, his own red-eyed glance slid away from her and things clicked into place.

“Are you drunk?”

“No! Of course not.” The words had that blurry sound she’d noticed earlier; apparently he noticed it, too. “Maybe,” he said, wincing. Shaking her head, trying to remember what her mother used to do for burns, Katniss took the broom from the corner of the kitchen to clean up the broken glass and bits of what used to be some sort of baking tray.

“Katniss? Are you mad at me?” Peeta sounded so forlorn that she stopped sweeping to look at him. He stood obediently by the sink in sock feet, keeping his hands under the cooling water; a quick glance around the kitchen showed his shoes by the back door. _I’ll have to make sure there’s no glass in them_ , she thought. A line of flour ran from the hem of his dark t-shirt, splotched with patches of flour, ending just below his right knee. Katniss felt the sudden need to brush another smear of flour just to the right of his mouth from his skin. He caught her staring; she didn’t know what kind of expression she wore, but it made him sigh. “You are mad at me.”

“What? No, I’m not mad.” She pulled the trashcan over to her pile of pottery and glass shards and laid it on its side, then began to sweep the pieces directly into the can. “Why would I be mad?” Her face grew warm, but that had nothing to do with the closed and cooling oven.


End file.
